Mike drops his fork and stands up.
“What’s happening?”
“Stay calm,” he says. “I knew this would happen. Come back to the table and-“
The table. I know the table. I know this room. I look around, finally seeing it for the first time.
I run.
I bolt through the parlor and back up the stairs, taking them two at a time, run back to the room.
Not the room, my room.
I throw the door open and it’s like seeing it for the first time, again. I take a step back out into the hall, peering through the door into my bedroom. I was born in that room. The bed used to be pink, there used to be My Little Pony posters on the wall, incongruous with the stately moldings and hearth and the other opulence. Later the room was darker in tone. The second time I had sex was on that bed. I know it was the second, the first was in the back of his car. When he gave me the ring.
My finger. There’s still a band of indented skin on my finger where my ring used to be. Before Vincent stole it. He stole it from me.
“Chris!”
I run. I don’t want him to find me. The tears sting my cheeks, hot and wet. I throw myself through the doors into the library, turn and shove a chair under the handles. He pounds on the doors.
“Chris, let me in!”
I ignore him. I circle the room. That symbol on the floor was never there before. This was my father’s office before…
I choke, and food rises to the back of my throat. Before my father died.
The desk. My mother never used this room. She kept it the same. There used to be a pipe set on the corner and it’s still there, on a pipe rest. I pick it up, feel the cool wood under my fingertips. It still smells like tobacco. There’s still a blotter and a magnifying glass and the last thing he was working on when he passed away, a stack of unfinished notes for a paper he hadn’t written yet, held down with a smoothly polished rock from the time we went to the Catskills between kindergarten and first grade. I saw a snake and cried, and I fell down and scraped my knee. I can see my mother holding my leg and wincing before she touches me with the bactine, knowing it’ll hurt me and knowing she has to.
Something on the desk doesn’t belong.
A notebook. His notebook.
I open it and it’s not a notebook at all.
It’s full of charcoal sketches. The most recent page falls open, the spine bent from wear.
The drawing is not finished, just roughed out. Most of the work has been done on the face. My face, asleep, eyes shut, lips pursed in peaceful repose. I’m lying on my back, and the further from my facial features the less defined the drawing. A bundle of roses rests on my chest, clutched lightly between my fingers, but the thorns cut into my flesh yet draw no blood. There’s a few lines suggesting a gown but I am basically naked, laid out on a bed, a crown of roses on my head.
A cold wave of disgust bursts through me. Did he strip me while I was sleeping to draw me naked?
I flip back through the book.
More drawings, and they are all me.
There’s a drawing of me playing football, of all things, running in the grass barelegged, the football tucked under my arm, a great big grin on my face as my hair blows in the breeze. I flip the page and there’s another picture of me lying but in bed, in my side, the covers all tucked up around me except where they’ve pulled away and exposed my bare back. The technique is masterful. With only a few strokes of his pencil he’s managed to make me look sweaty.
More pictures. More and more, dozens of poses and they’re all me.
I see the dates.
If they’re not lies, he’s been drawing me for years.
One of the first ones is a full page spread. I’m laid out nude on an antique chaise lounger, one arm over my head, a great big sapphire I’ve never owned on a chain around my throat, the stone nestled between my breasts.
A voice whispers in my mind.
Draw me like one of your French girls.
Okay, but you know what that means.
I see my hands as I slowly peel off my clothes. He’s never really seen me naked before. In the car we kept our shirts on and…
Stumbling backwards, I turn the page again.
The layout of the picture makes me turn the book sideways. It covers both pages. It’s a church, a cathedral. There’s a huge altar and standing in front of it is me, in a wedding dress, a veil draped over my eyes, a bouquet in my hands. There’s a difference here.
This one is signed.
Mike.
I drop the book. It lands on the floor with a solid thump and I stumble backwards until I bump into my father’s old record player.
Music thunders through the library, and I spin around. I know this song. I feel it in my bones.
My legs turn to jelly and I fall, clutching my head. My temples are pounding. I can feel blood sliding around in my veins, feel tears spreading down my cheeks.
The chair cracks and the doors fly open. Mike charges in. My mother is behind him.
“Mom!”
“Not now,” he says. “We pushed her too far. This is it. Trust me, Sarah.”
I cry her name again but she pulls the doors shut. Mike surges across the room and takes me by the shoulders, stopping me from throwing myself through the door.
“What’s happening to me?” I moan. “What did you do?”
“Chris, baby, it’s me. Look at me. Look at me.”
I look him in the eye.
“Can I keep you?” he whispers.
I remember.
Behind him, I see her. Andi stands in the library, in her t-shirt and short shorts, thick black blood oozing from the ruins of her throat, a dull look of hate etched on her beautiful face, now pale and swollen. Trash clings to her- an old banana peel, candy wrappers, dirt smeared on her pale skin. She hisses and I draw back.
“Chris, listen to me,” he says, shaking me by the arms. “You have to fight it.”
“You killed me,” Andi moans, shambling forward, reaching for me with graveyard fingers. “You tore out my throat. You were my best friend.”
“She’s here,” I wail, clutching him.
She reaches for me with sharp shards of bone for fingers, ready to claw and tear.
Mike stands to his full height, clutching my head to his chest, and vibrates.
“Get out,” he roars, and the words flood out of him like a physical force.
Andi staggers. For a second she’s just Andi.
“Chris? Chris? I don’t know where I am. Help me!”
Then she’s gone, snuffed out. She fades away like light from a candle guttering out.
“What’s happening to me?” I plead, pulling at him.
My head is pounding harder and harder, like a fist battering my skull from the inside.
Then I feel it, scratching at me from the inside. Moving, flailing, sharp points dragging down the inside of my throat. My gorge rises and the scratchy thing crawls back down, forcing its way into my body. I’m clutching him so hard it must be breaking his ribs but he just holds me back.
“Mike, Mike, help me.”
“I am,” he says, pulling me to the floor. “I’ve got you, baby. Listen to my voice.”
Something is pulling at me. It feels like there’s invisible claws sunk in my chest, sliding between my ribs, trying to pull them out.
“He’s trying to take you back. I’m not going to let him.”
I didn’t even realize he was pulling me into the circle. He brings his palm to his mouth and bites the palm of his hand, hard. He pulls it away bloody and, cradling me in one arm, slaps his other palm down and the circle blazes with green fire, and the pulling lessens. The fire sputters and fades, and the grip inside me tightens, invisible claws tearing at me from the inside.
“No,” Mike roars, “She’s mine and you can’t have her.”
My lips move. Air rushes in my throat. My tongue gives voice to words I’m not saying in a voice that isn’t mine.
“No.
My thrall. My property. Mine.”
I know that voice. Vincent. Oh God, he’s inside me.
“No,” Mike whispers, touching my cheek as he gazes into my eyes.
“She’s mine.”
He takes my hand. The ring glitters in his fingers. The cold metal glides over my skin and settles into the little cleft in my finger. Where it belongs.
“Don’t you remember?”
I remember.
I was nervous as hell. I knew something was happening. Something big. We’d both graduated and Mike had already earned a spot in the medical program at Temple. We were spending less and less time together as he made connections and networked and he was starting to spend time with other aspiring medical students. When he went to the bathroom and left me at the table I gripped the tablecloth in my hands until my knuckles went white. He was nervous as hell, he wouldn’t look at me all night. We’d been to this restaurant a hundred times and it was never like this. Even the waiters gave me looks.
So wrapped up in my fear, I was too nervous to even notice him circle around behind me. My breath caught when he leaned over me from behind, and my head brushed his chest. He leaned down until his chin rested on top of my head and reached around to set the box on the table, sliding his arms around me as I stared at it and swallowed. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and waited, patrons and servers both.
I swallowed, and he whispered in a voice so small only I could hear it.
“So. Can I keep you?”
I opened the box and slipped my engagement ring on my finger. A real emerald flanked by two diamonds. He must have worked himself to death to afford this.
“Yes,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear, and cheer.
He’d planned this. My mother was there, my uncle and his family, everybody we knew. They poured out of the back of the restaurant, and I couldn’t hold back the tears.
I look at Mike and I remember.
He dropped us off at the airport. Andi was dressed conservatively, for her. My best friend, who’d arranged all of this. We got her stuff out of the trunk first, then mine. Andi waited on the sidewalk, and I could see the cops eyeing us. The white zone was for loading and unloading only. We ignored all that and kissed. Hell, we made out. I wanted it to be Saturday so desperately I couldn’t stand it. It was Wednesday afternoon. Friday we’d be back, and then the rush to get ready. I’d just tried on my wedding dress.
“Hey,” he said, pulling back from the kiss. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
“If you don’t hurry up, they’re gonna arrest us,” said Andi, grinning.
“I know, I know.”
I kissed him, lightly, on the lips.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
14
No. No more.
A wail bursts out of me and I arch under him as he presses me to the floor. The shredding feeling in my guts has faded but it’s still there. Something tears at me. Something thick and oily and it doesn’t belong here, and it wants me back.
My eyes flutter open as Mike presses his lips to mine. Warm, soft lips. His kiss is a memory of all that came before, and it awakens something inside me that I’d forgotten was there. My hands roam, find his bare skin, and every time I feel his heart beat in his chest the pull of the thing trying to tear me away from him lessens. I taste salt and pull back. There’s blood in my mouth.
“The blood is the life.”
“It was yours,” I managed to choke out.
“Yes. Now you have to drink more. It’s the only way. Bite me, Christine.”
I shake my head, my eyes stinging with tears. “No, please. Don’t make me do that. I can’t.”
“It’s the only way. Do it. Do it!”
I’ve never hated what I’ve become more than this moment. He turns his head, showing me his throat as he lies on top of me. I reach up and he leans down, tucking my head into the crook of his neck. My teeth scrape over his flesh and he lets out a choked cry as I press them to his skin, ready to tear open his throat. I can’t do it. I can’t hurt him. His scent fills my nostrils, his heat my body. I remember what it feels like to be alive. I want him inside me. I want to be in the back seat of that car again. In my bed when he snuck in. Before any of this horror happened.
“It’s alright,” he murmurs, and I feel it in his throat like I feel his pulse.
I wrap my arms around him and close my teeth.
Something happens. It’s that kind of itchy feeling you get from a loose tooth. I pull back and run my tongue over my teeth and feel two sharp points where my incisors should be, so sharp they slice into my tongue and turn my mouth salty again. I lurch upwards and clamp down on his neck and the sharp points slide home, opening his flesh to me. Warm blood floods my mouth in an ecstatic flood. It’s sweet, intoxicating.
I don’t let go even as he curls his fingers under the neck of my sweater. Nor do I let go as he yanks, hard, and the fabric gives way with a loud rip, exposing my shoulder to the air. I feel fangs on my neck. When they pierce my flesh an electric shudder runs through my body. The sting and the pleasure remind me of the first time he entered me. I can feel him sucking on my neck until it stings the skin, drawing out the blood from my body as I do the same, writhing under him.
Can’t help it. My hands find his waist, slid around and tear at his clothes. His belt comes apart, the buckle ripping loose under my grasp, and I split his trousers open, ripping out the zipper with my bare hands, and then his cock is in my hand, hard and hot and raging. I let go of his neck and clamp down on his shoulder, biting harder this time. He returns the favor as I rake his back, shredding his clothes. His hands dance over my body, finding weak spots in my attire. He doesn’t bother with undressing me. He shreds my clothes, opening me to the cool air.
The thing inside me is terrified, scratching at me, like it’s trapped.
Mike rolls, tearing the last shreds of my clothing from my body as he pulls me on top of him. I rear up, arching my back. He runs his hands up my stomach and over my breasts, caressing the sensitive skin along the outer curve with his fingers. I repay him by seizing his hand and sinking my teeth into his palm, and it only arouses him more. He pumps up under me, and I have to grab his shaft. I’m so wet I can feel it on my thighs.
That feeling, as he enters me. It feels good, yes, but I feel whole again. Something that was ripped out of me has been put back.
He rolls on top. I lock my legs around him and rake his back with my nails. It draws blood. I taste it from my fingers. He licks and sucks at my bleeding shoulder and I feel the hateful cold thing inside me getting smaller and smaller, pushed up into a tiny corner by the warmth flooding my body as I arch under him. It’s been too long.
He’s mine, mine. I remember now.
Where he was frantic he grows slow, savoring me. His lips and fingers roam over my throat and chest, teasing lightly at my nipples. He runs his tongue down the middle of my chest, and lightly tongues the underside of my breasts until I’m glowing, filled with fire. He moves to face me, pinning my hands down, our fingers laced together, and fills me with slow, rhythmic thrusts, his grin widening with every one. For a moment I forget everything but him. I lock my legs around him, ankles pressed together. I want him to finish inside. I want him.
I want.
My eyes roll back. A peak like I’ve never experience before in my life rips through my body with shuddering, almost painful intensity. He plunges deep as he reaches his climax, holds himself tight against me. When it’s over I just want more.
Good thing he’s still hard, and it starts again with only a moment to catch his breath. I lie back under him, relax. He cups my head in his hand to keep it from touching the floor. Everything we need to say is spoken in kisses and looks, a deep gaze into his eyes. I loop my hands around his neck and pull him to me, squeeze his hips with my thighs and urge him on to finish inside me again. I don’t care anymore, I just want to be one flesh, one body.
His.
No
one else’s.
He draws back, rolls off of me. I quiver when he draws out of my body, grab him and lay on my side with him, soaking up his heat. I want a blanket now, I’m freezing, lying on cold stone. The fires blaze around us in a circle, in a riot of colors that are somehow all green, flickering up the ceiling, and I go limp as my mind fills. Images come without order or context, flooding into my mind at random as my memory pulls itself back together. I remember the time Andi got me to eat a mud pie. The time she came crying to me because her first boyfriend dumped her and I resented her for having a first boyfriend at all. All of Andi came back, and all of my mother, and all of Mike.
I just stared at him.
“I can’t believe you’re real.”
I cough.
He looks at me, eyes wide.
“Chris-“
Again a cough tears out of my throat, a deep hack, and when I breathe in the air, I can’t draw enough in and my lungs burn. There’s something moving. I can feel it. I claw at my throat until he stops me, grabbing my wrists. Mike pulls me to him and bends me forward and I shudder with a full body dry heave, hack and cough and sputter again, and I can feel it moving.
Out. Out. Have to get it out.
He’s got me, his arms around my waist. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Every time I try to fill my lungs a burning, surging panic rips through my body.
“Chris, honey,” he says, his voice choked with anguish, “this is gonna hurt.”
He pulls me against him, reaches out, and extends his fingers. My vision is blurring and my eyes are burning but I can see the nails in the wooden panels covering the windows moving on their own, sliding out of the wood like grass springing from the Earth. The panels shift and the morning light cuts blazing through the gloom and a scream chokes out of my throat as it washes over me.
“Stop,” I beg, but it comes out as a choked gurgle.
It hurts, oh God it hurts, I’m burning. Smoke curls from my fingers, puffs out of my nostrils, and the thing in my throat screams. I can hear it, a high pitched wail of agony as something else moves inside me. Uncoils. He turns me and pulls me against his body, sliding-sweat-slick against me, and I straddle him. He enters me as naturally as he takes me in his arms, his cock filling me as I arch back, the ecstasy of our union mingling with the agony of the fire as the wood falls away and the light blazes.
Count On Me Page 56
